


Five Times They Slept in the Same Bed

by PoeticallyIrritating



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, parts 2/4 are making out, well parts 1/3/5 are hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5427518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always comes back to Trish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Parts 2 & 3 are on their way, and both are longer. Warnings throughout all sections for discussion of canon abuse and addiction.

One night when she’s fourteen, Jessica’s bedroom door creaks open. The shape in the darkness is tall, skinny, a little gawky: Trish.

“Jess?” she whispers. She steps inside, uninvited.

Jessica groans. “What?”

She regrets her harshness when Trish’s face falls. “I just—never mind.”

Jessica sits up in bed, cracks her back. “No, I’m serious, what?”

“I can’t sleep,” says Trish. “I can hear _them._ ”

 _Them_ is Dorothy and the producer of Trish’s show, who apparently can’t stop fucking or making comments about Trish’s weight to go to sleep at a human hour. If Jessica listens intently, she can just make it out.

“It’s gross,” Trish says.

“Yeah,” says Jessica. She pulls a face.

“Can I sleep in here?” She’s still standing anxiously in the doorway. The picture is almost ghostlike; her blonde hair is frizzy from being curled up tight under the wig all day, and the dim bluish light from the moon through the hall window makes it look like an eerie halo.

Jessica sighs, and scoots over to one side of the bed. “Sure.”

 Trish pushes the door closed and comes up to the bed, looks at it. “You only have one pillow.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the golden child, am I?” She regrets it the instant she says it; Trish looks like she might cry, and Jessica knows where the bruises are on Dorothy’s golden goose. (Her back and sides, mostly. Places the camera won’t see. They used to be more obvious, but Dorothy’s gotten shrewder since someone in the makeup department threatened to report her to social services.) She thinks about saying sorry, but she can feel the word get stuck somewhere in her chest. Instead she moves over a little farther, making space for Trish’s head on the pillow.

Trish crawls under the covers, and Jessica gasps. “Oh my god, your feet are so _cold!”_

Trish laughs, a soft stifled sound, and pushes her freezing toes farther into Jessica’ space.

“Trish!” Jessica yelps.

Trish giggles again, and muffles the sound in her fist.

They lapse into silence. Trish’s breathing is erratic, each exhalation interrupted with a jump in her chest that Jessica can see in silhouette. It steadies after a while, and the rise and fall of her chest slows.

She rolls over on her side, and curls into Jessica, face nestling in her shoulder.

“You good?” Jessica whispers.

Trish mumbles something indistinguishable, lips moving against Jessica’s pajama shirt, and puts her arm across Jessica’s belly. Her hand is warm, and Jessica falls asleep like that, feeling the weight of Trish’s arm rise and fall with her breath.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take Two: This Time It's Gayer. Featuring sugary alcohol and bad movies, much like every teenage f/f scene I've ever written.

When they’re seventeen, Dorothy’s gone to Bermuda with her boyfriend of the week, and Trish stands on the kitchen counter to get half a dozen assorted bottles from the liquor cabinet. Trish’s bed is the nicer one, so she dumps the bottles on her bed and Jessica follows, sprawling on the bedspread between bottles of gin and Kahlua. “You gonna drink all of this?” she says, eyeing the incredible volume of alcohol collected on the bed.

Trish shrugs. “Maybe.”

“I’m not calling the fuckin’ ambulance for you, so watch it.”

Trish rolls her eyes at her. “I’m _kidding,_ I’m not getting wasted.” She smiles a little half-smile. “I’m actually having kind of a good day.”

Trish wants a horror movie, and Jessica wants a French indie thing she borrowed from a kid in the A/V club. They compromise with a romantic comedy that neither of them wants to watch, both rolling their eyes.

“Take a shot every time this chick does something embarrassing,” says Jessica. The ditzy girl onscreen follows Dreamy Stubble Man home, and Trish gulps from a bottle.

The she chokes, and backwashes a mouthful back in.

“Trish!” Jessica yelps.

Trish makes a face. “It burns.” She checks the label. “Okay, never drinking straight vodka again.”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “What do you drink normally?”

“I dunno, wine, I guess.”

Jessica snorts. “Are you strapping a flask of merlot to your thigh, Princess Patsy?”

Trish has gotten tougher with age. “Fuck off,” she says, and shoves Jessica with her foot. “I just grab shit from cast parties and keep it in my dressing room.”

Jessica selects a cherry liqueur from the mix, and makes a sour face when she swallows. “Tastes like cough syrup,” she reports. “Try the Bailey’s.”

Bailey’s turns out to be just right—sugary and creamy, a kind of junk food drink that renders Trish’s hoarded Snickers bars unnecessary. By the time the heroine is being serenaded outside her New York apartment in midwinter, they’re both tipsy. Jessica can feel the effects of the alcohol tingling in her hands and feet, and the kind of warm soft feeling in her middle that only seems to come in this hazy space between drunk and sober.

Somehow, and Jessica can’t really figure out how, Trish has flopped her head onto Jessica’s shoulder. It seems easy for her, the physical part. Of—friendship, or whatever. Jessica doesn’t know how to do it, to make that contact. She never has, and now that she lives in a stranger’s house it’s even harder. Like she’s living in a solitary prison cell. Untouchable.

Except for Trish. Trish’s head is on Jessica’s shoulder like it’s nothing, and her arm is touching Jessica’s and Jessica is just tipsy enough not to freak out.

It takes the credits rolling for her to realize that she’s been focusing more on Trish’s breathing than the plot of the movie. Trish is still holding the bottle of Bailey’s, and she takes another swig from it before she sets it down on the bedside table.

Trish looks sad, still. (Always.) Her hand is millimeters from Jessica’s, and Jessica wants to grab it. She doesn’t.

An ABBA song is playing over the credits, and Trish lifts her head from Jessica’s shoulder to turn toward her, just slightly. “Jess?”

“Mm?”

“Do you ever wish it was always like this?”

“All the time,” Jessica says softly.

Trish leans in, and Jessica rocks forward almost by instinct. Their lips collide clumsily, but Trish grips Jessica’s sides, providing just enough gentle pressure that Jessica can relax for a moment and sigh into the kiss. Trish tastes sugar-sweet after her last sip from the bottle, and Jessica tongues her lower lip, savoring the sweetness there.

Jessica rocks back on her heels, finally, and murmurs, “Holy shit, Trish.”

“Yeah?” Trish smiles like a secret, with a mischievous pull at the corner of her mouth. “Wanna do it again?”

Jessica bites her lip and asks, “Are you sure?”Jessica is. She can feel the heat from the booze and from Trish’s body converging in her, and she is drawn to Trish like an ache.

“Yeah,” says Trish, and when Jessica doesn’t look convinced, she say more firmly, “Yes.” She fidgets with the edge of her pajama shirt. “I love you. Like, I mean, not like that—like—like a sister, but obviously not _actually_ like a sister, just…” She looks at Trish, and shrugs. “You’re my best friend. And right now I want to kiss you…a lot.”

“O-kay,” says Jessica, unsteadily.

“What about you—what about your A/V crush, uh, Peter?” Trish looks genuinely concerned, like Peter has ever been anything but a friendly face and someone to talk movies with.

“Screw Peter,” says Jessica fervently. This time she pulls Trish in, and now that the taste of the sugar is gone she can taste Trish underneath it. Trish kisses hard, but Jessica makes her hands, lips, teeth as soft as she can. She’s never been taught how to be gentle but she knows how easy it is for her to hurt, to make bruises on Trish’s unimaginably fragile skin.

They fall asleep facing each other, kissing lazily until they both drift off. For a moment in between waking and sleeping, Jessica dares to hope that someday they’ll have more than an instant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing my best with my minimal knowledge of the Marvel universe to throw in some comics references; Peter from the A/V club is in fact _that_ Peter.


	3. Part III

Jessica is twenty-two and hasn’t talked to Trish in three months when she sees Patsy Walker on a talk show, with a forced smile and a gauntness to her cheeks that’s worse than it’s ever been. Trish seems out of it, dazed beyond belief, and the video starts to circulate online: _Patsy’s stoned on tv!!!!_ Jessica reads half a dozen comments and then closes the window, nauseated.

She shows up at Dorothy’s office with her hands shaking. Dorothy jumps up with a start, and Jessica rushes her, pins her against the wall, holding her off the ground with one hand on her neck.

“Where is she?” Jessica growls.

Dorothy chokes out, “Jessie?”

“Trish. Where is she?” She lifts up. Dorothy’s toes are barely touching the floor.

“The studio on 49th. Filming a—”

Jessica lets go, and Dorothy crumples to the floor. “Thanks, Mom,” she says, brittle.

Across town, Jessica shoves aside a security guard to get inside the studio, and finds Trish a chair in makeup. The makeup artist sees her first, startled by the shadow lurking in the doorway, and says, “Excuse me?”

Trish swivels her chair around to look. “Jess?” Her voice is hollow-sounding, like there’s not enough life behind it. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting you the fuck out of here.”

Trish yelps and grabs her purse from beside her chair as Jessica hoists her over her shoulders. She makes a few half-hearted attempts to struggle, but before they’re out of the building she’s given in. Halfway down the street, Jessica says, “If I put you down, will you walk? Not that I don’t love the idea of carrying you thirty blocks.”

“Okay,” says Trish. She sounds weak. Jessica sets her down gently on the sidewalk, and they walk through the city with twilight settling around them.

Trish seems like she’s barely aware of what she’s doing or why, and after a few more blocks, Jessica stops walking to ask: “What are you on?”

Trish rolls her head over to look at Jessica. “You think I’m some kind of addict?”

Jessica snorts. “Yeah, _I’m_ some kind of addict. I know the signs.”

Trish looks forward again, keeps moving. “Dr. Maher prescribed…Xanax. For the panic attacks.”

“Where is it?”

Trish walks faster. “None of your business.” She’s pissed but she’s been trained out of swearing by her mother, always avidly tracking public opinion. Parents don’t like their kids to idolize someone who swears in interviews.

Jessica grabs at her purse, and Trish’s grip is tight enough that the bag rips down the seams, scattering the contents onto the sidewalk. Jessica snatches up the orange pill bottle before Trish can get to it, and thrusts it into her pocket.  

Trish starts, incomprehensibly, laughing. One of her lipsticks has gotten caught between Jessica’s foot and the sidewalk, ground into the concrete, and she’s staring at it, her laughter almost manic.

The laughter turns into tears and she looks up at Jessica, shaking her head in disbelief. “You couldn’t mind your own business for once in your life?”

Jessica keeps her eyes trained at the ground, taking inventory of the items scattered there. “I can,” she says. “Just not when it comes to you.”

“Screw you, Jess.” She tries, but all the fight has gone out of her voice.

“Come on,” Jessica says, soft. “You’re coming home with me.”

They don’t speak much the rest of the way. Jess gathers Trish’s things in her pockets, whatever she can carry, and they leave the rest—some replaceable makeup and several dozen receipts—on the sidewalk. When they reach her building, Jessica lifts Trish, cradling her in her arms, and carries her up the stairs. She doesn’t set her down until she’s reached her bedroom, placing Trish (limp, exhausted) gently onto the mattress.

 It’s getting truly dark now, and Jessica realizes too late that the only consumable things in her apartment are whiskey and a half-eaten pop tart. The pizza place down the street won’t deliver an order under ten dollars, which is all the cash Jessica has on hand, so she murmurs to Trish that she’ll be right back and walks a few blocks on the darkened sidewalk to pick up a small cheese pizza. She considers pepperoni, but decides instead to use the extra dollar-fifty on a pack of cigarettes.

When she gets back almost an hour later, Trish is staring at the ceiling.

“Got pizza,” she says, dumping the box down on the bedspread next to Trish.

“Great,” says Trish, without moving. “I want to die.”

Jessica grabs a piece of pizza and drops down onto the bed next to her. “Me too, sometimes.” She takes a bite, and washes it down with the whiskey stored by the bed. “Keep fuckin’ moving anyway.”

“Why?”

Jessica sighs. “Fuck if I know,” she says. And then, “Hope that someday something happens that doesn’t suck.” She slugs from the bottle again.

Trish reaches for it, and Jessica rolls her eyes and sets it on the ground, out of her grasp. “Not while you still have Xanax in your system; I’m not babysitting you in the emergency room.”

Trish looks blankly up at the ceiling again.

“Want to sleep?” Jessica asks. She doesn’t, but Trish could probably use the sleep, and if there’s anything she’s good at it’s being silent and unmoving in the darkness. Skills from before she was strong, when she was eleven and gawky and bug-eyed, easily bullied.

“No,” says Trish.

“Wanna eat?”

“No.”

“You should,” says Jessica.

“Makes me feel like shit.” Trish chews on her lip.

“Well, if you starve to death, I’m going to feel like shit.”

“I’ll eat something tomorrow.” The words are muffled by a pillow; Trish has rolled over onto her side.

“Promise?”

Trish doesn’t answer. She inches closer to Jessica and wraps around her, one of her legs across one of Jessica’s and one hand gripping the collar of Jessica’s shirt, a movement that reminds Jessica of a child. “Goodnight,” Jessica murmurs, but Trish is already snoring softly, face pressed awkwardly against Jessica’s upper arm.


	4. Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been ages! Sorry! But it’s back and they love each other and this one is like 80% happy making out. Warnings for sexual content this chapter, but nothing particularly explicit.

When Jessica loses her fourth job in the span of a year, she shows up on Trish’s doorstep with a filthy backpack slung over her shoulder.

“Data entry not doing it for you?” Trish doesn’t look upset, just tired.

“I got evicted.” She walks in without asking.

“Surprise,” says Trish, with a mild kind of disappointment. She goes into the kitchen, pours a glass of white wine, and nods in the direction of the guest bedroom. “Drop your shit and come have a drink with me.”

Jessica does as she’s told. She’s not usually big on that, on doing as she’s told. Or on wine, for that matter. But Trish is different—has always been different. She dumps her bag on the floor of the clean white room and trudges back into the kitchen, sitting on one of Trish’s round bar stools and dropping her feet in their boots— _thud_ —on the one next to it.

Trish sighs. She’s drunk half her glass of wine somehow, despite her small, polite sips. Jessica accepts a glass, and makes a face when she tastes it. “Sweet,” she says.

“I like it sweet,” says Trish.

“Eurgh.” Jessica slides the glass away from her on the counter. “Nothing stronger?”

“I wasn’t expecting you.” She tilts her head. She always seems so soft, breakable. Even more now, with the soft, flowing clothes she drapes herself in, a parody of the upper-middle-class woman at twenty-four. Her home is all clean lines, minimalist furniture, huge windows to let the light in. It’s the kind of place Jessica would feel uncomfortable in if it belonged to anybody else. As it is, she’s still a little on edge.

She takes her wineglass back and downs the contents. “Chug, chug,” Trish says, more than a little sardonic, and Jessica rolls her eyes. The tangy sweetness of Trish’s carefully selected white is clinging to her tongue, and she grabs a soda from the fridge to wash it out.

“I’ll get you something else tomorrow. Whiskey?”

“Anything that doesn’t taste like it was made by Willy Wonka.” She holds her glass out for a refill anyway. Trish obliges.

When Trish has tipped the last drops of wine into her glass, Jessica is feeling distinctly…tingly. Her usual discount liquor makes her burn and then go numb; this is something different.

Trish finally tires of standing, and she rounds the corner of the island to take a seat on the couch. She beckons Jessica over, and Jessica surveys her for a second—light-haired, flushed from the wine, a smile curling at her lips—before following.

The wine hasn’t allayed her awkwardness at being in this clean, white place; when she sits on the couch, she bounces her leg anxiously until Trish places her hand gently on her knee to stop her. “You’re driving me crazy,” says Trish, but the smile hasn’t left her lips.

Trish’s hand is warm through her jeans and Jessica bites her own lip, hard. She closes her eyes, breathing slowly, and then opens them again. Trish’s hand is still on her knee even though she’s stopped jiggling her leg, and her eyes look green in this light.

“Jess,” Trish murmurs.

They rock together and it feels inevitable as gravity. Jessica’s hand tangles in Trish’s hair, drawing her closer, closer—in an instant their bodies are closer than they’ve been in years and Jessica feels the ache of memory all through her.

Trish draws back, breathing hard, and Jessica rests her hand on Trish’s waist. Trish looks like she’s about to say something, and Jessica pulls her in, finding Trish’s neck and biting (gently, feather-light compared to how hard she could) until Trish’s gasp takes the words from her throat.

“Watch it!” Trish gasps, but she’s half laughing. “Don’t—nothing visible.”

“Sorry,” Jessica breathes against her skin. The teeth marks are already fading.

“You’re fine,” Trish murmurs. “Just not on the neck.” Jessica pushes up Trish’s shirt and nips at her stomach, sucking at the flesh while Trish makes soft desperate sounds in the back of her throat, rocking underneath her.

“Jess,” Trish says softly, and then when Jessica doesn’t respond, Trish knocks her on the side of the head. “Jess!”

Jessica pulls back with a start, eyes flickering over the purple marks scattered across the gentle swell of her belly. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, “God, Trish, I didn’t mean—”

Trish snorts. “It’s okay,” she says. A little softer: “I’m stronger than you think.” She reaches to stroke Jessica’s hair, and then a smile tugs at the corner of her lips again. “I was just going to say maybe we should take this to the bedroom.”

She stands up and holds out a hand for Jessica to take, and Jessica feels only a little stupid allowing herself to be led. Trish, soft but firm, presses Jessica against the mattress.

It’s almost like new again, until it isn’t. She remembers Trish’s body from stolen moments in her first apartment (when they were nineteen and stupid enough to think they might have a chance) but it’s different now, a little softer, a little older. The evening passes in half-memories; Trish’s hands on her feel simultaneously real and unreal, the ghost of too much history laid over the present.

They fall asleep like lovers, sweaty and grateful, Trish’s arm across Jessica’s stomach. For an instant before she sleeps, Jessica feels like crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment if you enjoyed!


	5. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post season 1. Jessica's usual coping mechanisms don't work anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong warnings this chapter for suicidal ideation, PTSD, etc.

It stops working. _Birch Street, Higgins Lane, Cobalt fucking Drive._ It’s like he knew; like he orchestrated his whole goddamned plan to destroy the only non-substance-related coping mechanism Jessica has.

It should be easier now that he’s dead but it seems like it just gets fucking harder every day. She’s trying to catch up with a cheating husband, same old P.I. story, when she sees someone who looks like _him_ and suddenly she’s on the ground. The concrete blurs in front of her eyes and she can’t catch her breath; she sees red and thinks _blood blood blood_ and doesn’t realize the blood is from her knees, seeping through her pants onto the sidewalk.

 _Hey lady! You okay?_ She can’t look up, can’t move; the voice is barely audible compared to the taunting, “Jessica…Come here, Jessica” echoing in her head. His mouth is on her neck and there’s a brittle smile on her face and she thinks about dying.

When she comes back to herself her knuckles are scraped raw and the sidewalk is cracked; she can feel her pulse thudding through her whole body, hard enough that it feels like her brain is knocking against the inside of her skull.

She thinks about dying again.

She takes a few slugs of the whiskey in her water bottle and gets to her feet. Her knees are shaking.

She sits on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge for an hour, maybe more, drinking whiskey and looking down at the water. Thinking about what dying is like.

She doesn’t jump, because: If there’s a Heaven, she won’t be allowed inside. And if there’s a Hell, it’s sure as fuck where Kilgrave will be.

Her phone broke somewhere in between leaving the apartment and now. There’s an emergency phone on the bridge but it only calls the police, so she picks herself up and walks until she finds a pay phone, where she dials the only number she knows by heart.

Getting anywhere in New York in fifteen minutes is nothing short of superhuman, especially in a car, but somehow Trish does it. She pulls over onto the side of the road and walks up to Jessica, who is sitting against a chain-link fence with her knees pulled up to her chest.

Trish pulls her up by the arms and when she seems likely to crumple again, Trish braces her legs to pick Jessica up, bridal-style.

The car smells clean, like detergent and Pine-Sol. Jessica’s vision is blurry but it’s not until Trish sets her down in the passenger seat and wipes at her cheeks that she realizes she’s crying. She crosses her legs and stares out the window while Trish starts up the car and pulls back onto the road.

It’s a few blocks before Trish says, “So where are we going?”

“I, um.” Jessica doesn’t turn around even when Trish touches her on the shoulder. She stares out the window as she says, “I don’t know if I should—”

She can’t finish the sentence. Trish asks, “Be alone?”

Jessica grunts something like agreement.

“I wasn’t going to leave you alone.” Trish’s voice is unbearably gentle, so kind it makes Jessica want to scream or vomit. “I just meant—do you want to go home or do you want to come to my place?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment before Jessica grunts, “Yours.”

Trish doesn’t ask why, so Jessica doesn’t have to say: _Maybe I’ll be safe there._

The building is valeted and the entrance is covered by a doorman. It feels like every person they see is staring, and Jessica grits her teeth and looks straight ahead because she doesn’t have the energy to punch anyone out right now. (Besides, Trish might not appreciate that.)

They’re not free from prying eyes until they close and triple-lock the door to Trish’s apartment—and Jessica’s pretty sure there are still security cameras somewhere. Trish sets down her purse and retrieves a towel from the linen closet, offering Jessica the shower.

She turns the water to scalding, almost hot enough to burn. She sits naked on the ground with her knees pulled up and the hot water beats down on the top of her head, her back, her knees. When she closes her eyes, it feels like she’s fading in and out of existence. She couldn’t say how much time passed, but she doesn’t inhabit her body again until Trish raps on the door and calls, “Jess? You okay in there?”

It takes a while, but Jessica unfolds her body and stands up, shuts off the water, and wraps herself in the towel. She could put on her clothes again but they’re all dirty; even the underwear had been picked up from the floor and turned inside out that morning, so she exits to the living room with the towel wrapped and tucked under her arms.

Trish has clean pajamas for her, a color-coordinated set in some kind of satiny fabric, and they’re too soft—just like Trish’s voice, her hands, like everything about her.

For a perverse instant she misses Luke, misses having something she didn’t have to worry about breaking. (But she managed anyway, didn’t she? She found a way to fuck up even a man with bulletproof skin.)

Jessica asks for a big T-shirt instead. Trish finds one in the back of a drawer, an extra-large shirt that says _Run for the Cure 2005._ Jessica likes the feeling of it against her skin, wrinkled and a little starchy, probably never washed. She starts for the couch but Trish rolls her eyes and prods her in the direction of the bedroom.

Jessica curls up in a ball, bony arms around bony knees, and Trish changes and settles into bed beside her. She doesn’t try to hold Jessica, to wrap around her or squeeze her hands; she just lies quietly beside her.

Trish falls asleep first; Jessica can’t sleep thinking about someone watching her. But once Trish is asleep, the quiet regularity of her breathing is comforting enough that Jessica can close her eyes. For an instant before she falls asleep, she feels—almost—safe.


End file.
